User:Jules/imagininginfrastructures

I have recently read very carefully the 4th Chapter of Martin Dodge's phd thesis: "Understanding Cyberspace Cartographies: A Critical Analysis of Internet Infrastructure Mapping"
The chapter itself is called "Imagining Internet Infrastructures : Metaphors and scientific inscription".

The following wrap up has been enabled after a thourough session of reprocessing some information extracted from the text with the help of Manetta <3.
Last year, Manetta and I had started looking at metaphors of the Internet. We had at the time established the three following categories for classifying metaphors :
- raw material & transformation (data like material resource)
- local & global (land, territory to explore)
- motion & experience (navigating, displacement)

This reading was initially aimed for me to go forward with the context of our project, but ended up clearing things up for my work as well. In fact, I feel like it helped me understand why I feel unsettled with everything I do. The chapter covers really nicely and comprehensively the ways we make an invisible infrastructure tangible to ourselves and why they're all questionable.

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About invisibility, the core issue

There are several dimensions to which the invisibility of Internet infrastructures applies. Firstly there is a material dimension. The physical infrastructure is hidden from sight. Fibre optic cables lay underground or at the bottom of the seas, wiring cabinets are discrete and anonymous part of street furniture, data centres are moved far from populated places. Moreover the Internet becomes more ubiquitous by getting propagated wirelessly. On a phenomenological aspect, data doesn't manifest itself through human senses, data is made of discrete states of energy without weight, smell, sound or colour, etc... Secondly, it is invisible in use. There is no possible physical interaction enabling the user to “feel” the pace at which data travels. This is a characteristic inherent to telecommunication, there is a lack of human touch. As a consequence, the user cannot gain knowledge of the Infrastructure through navigation. Interfaces also hide all procedures at the back, that type of information is concealed. There is also an aim to fade the Internet within all daily activities, making it even more seamless. The fact that the Internet is taken for granted constitutes another dimension. People don't feel a need to define what it is anymore, it has vanished from their consciousness to become a “commonplace”.
“As infrastructures become more transparent (and more reliable, affordable and universally available), so they morph in character from desired conveniences to a necessary and seemingly naturally-given part of the lived environment.”

Lastly discussed, the operating force behind the Internet is also quite hidden. The institutional practice is embedded within different activities like construction, maintenance, business, finance, standards... These are bound within politico-economical structures and it is quite hard to grasp where decisions are made since there seem to be quite a fragmentation. This infrastructural invisibility makes it complicated to grasp the socio political implications of the Internet and doesn't enable much analysis and critic of its impact on society and of the way it is operated. Invisibility prevents from any possibility to discuss alternative ways of operating the infrastructure. Metaphors and scientific inscription are used to make the Internet visible to the masses and produce facts about its “nature”.

On metaphors

Metaphors help familiarising with the unknown. They create meaning and unveil certain aspects of the Internet, although they cannot apply to it as a whole, since there are so many dimensions to it. They are performative cognitive assets, also influencing the direction that the technology will lean towards. Their creation always support particular stories that their initiator wants to communicate. They generate a possible understanding by focusing on one aspect while hiding others.

--- Here I am only listing the categories discussed by the author

1. Linguistic and spatial (cognitive) metaphors
The use of metaphors is a form of classification and conceptualisation, relating the object to a set of well known categories. Which is a form of figurative speech, fundamental to human language and which structure cognitive experience (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980)
Metaphors “create a 'stereoscopic' vision which allows for simultaneous viewing of an idea from two or more points of view" (Sawhney, 1996).

Metaphors entering the linguistic/spatial category tend to focus on different levels of the apprehension of space:

A. Linguistic spatial metaphors
It started in the 90s, because the Internet was very new and had to be adopted by the masses.
They came from very different frameworks:
- living organism → tree, body, brain
- city, urban space → streets, halls, suburbs
- marketplace → online shops, e-trading, virtual money
- written text → letter/email, addresses, signature files

B. Frontier related
→ mapping frontiers renders uncertain spaces as definite lines (cf Torsedillaline dividing the new world for Spain and Portugal)
→ mapping frontiers unveils their existence and representation fixes their position
→ all world maps are semiotically frontier signs
→ on the ground, the frontier line is not physically traceable yet maps construct territory
→ it is even more connoted when there is an idea of overcoming the tyranny of place and time
Metaphors draw a line.

C. Familiar architectural places / container-like space
Libraries, shops, farms / room, sites, cities, communities, sphere, worlds, cyberspace
Architectural space metaphors are very common
→ home and work gave concrete forms to internet infrastructures and intangible media
(homepage, digital libraries, virtual classrooms, server farms)

D. Transport and motion
surfing, exploring, homesteading
→ Navigation of the static individual
Pipes, routes, rails, roads
→ analogies with data flow

2. Visual metaphors for Internet infrastructure

Visual metaphors encompass:

A. Wiring visions
topological generalisation morphs the Internet as:
- conventional geographical network
- variable scale distortion subway maps
- non / alternative geographical circuits diagrams

B. Global visions
Heroic / God-like point of view, over the Earth wrapped into telecommunication.
→ integral to the imagery of corporate capitalism and environmental movements (telecommunications, aviation, Whole Earth idea, www, global village)
→ iconic symbol of world wide business and institutions
→ also derived from cold war arm-race, satellite monitoring, military control and command

C. machine-like visions
Physical machine modelling the Internet's concept
The Internet as machine with working parts that can handle and transport items of data.
Useful for educational purposes. Usually a “tin cans and strings” diagram.
example : warriors of the net

D. Abstract visions
Naturalistic iconography of organic structures (tree branches with leaves, fractals, spiderwebs, brains and veins)
Aesthetics of meteorology and astronomy (clouds, nebulas, star clusters)
These graphs show nothing despite their claims, they are “artistic images” for “science museums”.
There is most of the time no instruction on how to interpret them, they connote the “sublime” of the Infrastructure and demonstrate the technical power if their creators.